Play Pretty.: Face it. I ain't fightin' for you.

So it's been a while. Too long. Sorry. I'll make it up to you by embarrassing myself. I promise.

A week before last Christmas I got dumped. It's not at all a big deal to me that it was a week before Jesus' birthday since I don't ever do anything significant for the holidays. I just thought that adding this specific detail would get me some pity points. "Who would dump someone a week before Christmas?!" Who isn't a fan of some good ol' fashioned pity?

I've never really been dumped before. Not because I'm out breakin' hearts, but because I haven't had many (any?) girlfriends. Any other past "relationships" I've had ended respectfully. They were more like, "Hey you're cool, it just ain't gonna work out. Good luck." Getting dumped is one of the single worst things any person can experience, not unlike eating a big bowl of corned beef hash then immediately seeing a fat puerto rican woman wearing tights bend over in front of you on the M train at 7:00AM on a Monday. I love corned beef hash. But what I'm trying to say is: These are the most valuable life experiences.

Whenever Hollywood dramatizes a breakup I can almost never relate. Ben Stiller crying with cum on his ear, or Steve Carrell putting on a suit and smashing on beautiful women while missing his wife. There was crying, but there was no cum, not on my ear at least, and there were absolutely no beautiful women being smashed on to help me get my mind off of my brand new shiny ex-girlfriend. Instead, I sat around and thought about everything I could have done differently. Should I have held her hand more? Should I have been more patient? Should I have been nicer to her friends? Should I have cried less often after sex? Just kidding, I didn't cry after sex. No. Seriously. I didn't.

Having close friends around really helped. I had plenty of people to bore with my, "I just don't know where we went wrong" stories and they all responded with believable head nods and honest-sounding, "Maybe you just have too look at the facts. It wasn't meant to be." Actually Ryan (co-host of the amazing Daddy Issues podcast, subscribe on iTunes) told me to drink as much as I could and by the time I was over the hangover I'd forget I was ever in a relationship. He's a natural Dr. Phil.

There isn't a book that you can read that gives you advice on how you're supposed to react when you get your heart ripped out of your chest and salsa y o merengue'd (danced) on. You might want to check Amazon before you take my word on that. I tried my hardest to not say anything I'd regret. And for the most part I don't have any regrets. But there is something I said more than a few times that I really don't understand.

"I'm not giving up. I'm going to fight for you."

I understand that not giving up part. This one time my friend Conor and I ordered a huge Lou Malnati's pizza (half cheese, half sausage) and refused to leave the restaurant until it was completely finished. I still have indigestion from it. Or this one time I started that "Running With Scissors" book and read the entire thing. Sometimes you just have to man up and not give up. I get it. But the "I'm going to fight for you" part. I'm clueless.

I imagine men used to say this to their wives and muses before a battle of some sort. I think Russell Crowe said it to his wife's freshly raped/burned corpse in Gladiator. "I will fight for you." The real Robin Hood (Kevin Costner) paired up with Morgan Freeman and whooped ass for his lady to the Bryan Adams soundtrack. They put their armor on, got on their horses (in that order I think, I have no fuckin' idea), and rode off into battle. Once they got to battle they killed dudes and went to their homes and fucked with their families. Revenge. They made their enemies' favorite sons watch them as they tied up and shit on the dogs. They made the wives make dinner and then ate it and told them how shitty it was and how much better their own wives cooked. Actually I think they probably just forced them to do other wrong and disgusting X-rated things. The favorite sons too. "Don't just look at it, eat it." The point is: They fought, they fought for their loved ones.

As I read through the pathetic, but honest, text messages and e-mails I sent, I keep coming across that phrase: I'm going to fight for you. Why did I say it? The honest answer is that I probably heard it in many movies growing up and thought it was what you were supposed to say. I didn't want to break up so I said a lot of shit that sounded Hollywood. "Girl, you're my one, my only errrthang." I actually didn't say that but I wish I did. Instead I sat around my apartment with red eyes wondering if everything was my fault. My way of "fighting" was pathetic and borderline nonexistent. What did I do? I got on Facebook. I Liked a few more of her statuses. I riddled some pictures with a few HAHA!'s and some CUTE!'s. I read a book she always talked about. I successfully fought every urge to smell the panties she forgot here. I bought her a Christmas present so she could float in some chamber and discover her consciousness, or some shit, I still don't fuckin' know. I sent her an e-mail saying everything I had to say. I...fought? No. It would have been more impressive if I would have gone to her enemy's house and ate all of his/her Doritos or something like that. Or ran a shopping cart into the door of the job she hated. I don't even know where I'd find a shopping cart. Instead, I stayed at home. Hiding behind my computer. Sobbing. Thinking. Blaming. "Like"-ing. "HAHA"-ing. But not fighting. Nothing close to fighting. And what happened? I stayed dumped. And although I'm not a natural Kevin Costner, I'm fine with it. It had nothing to do with the ex. It's who I am. I don't have the slightest goddamn clue how you fight for a girlfriend. Do I go beat up her next boyfriend? Do I yell at her mom? Do I apologize to her friends? Fuck it. I'll never know. And I don't give a shit. Apparently I'm a big pussy. That's alright. I'm a lover. Not a fighter.